Brisingr

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2008

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Chapters 4-6

Chapter 4 Summary: “Divergence”

Eragon opens the door to a cell and finds Sloan, Katrina’s father, who had betrayed Eragon; he cannot bring himself to kill Sloan, so he puts him to sleep. Fighting the Ra’zac together, Eragon and Roran are able to free Katrina; Eragon scans Katrina for Galbatorix’s spells, but she is untouched, and they are able to return to the cave entrance. Eragon uses the full strength of Beloth the Wise’s belt, which he acquired in previous books in the series, to heal Saphira’s wounds; then Katrina and Roran climb onto Saphira, expecting Eragon to join them. He is staying behind on the pretense of killing the final Ra’zac and searching for useful scrolls. Saphira tries to chase and catch him, but he makes it to a tunnel where she cannot fit. She does not want to leave her “little one.”

Chapter 5 Summary: “Rider and Ra’zac”

Eragon is able to coax out the final Ra’zac and speak to him before any fighting occurs; knowing death is upon him, the Ra’zac asks that Eragon refer to his race as “fear” when responding to questions about their extinction—a request that Eragon denies. The Ra’zac reveals a secret: Galbatorix is close to finding the true name for something (but he will not reveal what that is). Their duel ends in the Ra’zac’s death, after which Eragon is able to descend the mountainside with Sloan on his back.

When Eragon reaches the bottom of Helgrind, he is just short of death until a bumblebee “renew[s] Eragon’s will to survive” (69). Eragon transfers power from his surroundings into himself until he feels restored. They are far enough away from the cave that the men who had been following them would not be able to mentally detect them any longer. As Eragon travels with Sloan, he considers his own complicated feelings toward ridding the world of the Ra’zac. On the one hand, he is pleased to have sought and found revenge against the deaths of Garrow and Brom; on the other, he feels a loss of connection with the Palancar Valley, his home.

Chapter 6 Summary: “To Walk the Land Alone”

Waking up hungry, Eragon kills several small animals and eats them before considering a just punishment for Sloan. Waking the old blind man, he tells him they have reached Mirnathor and answers questions about his family’s safety; Sloan can barely believe he’s speaking to Eragon. When Eragon rattles off a list of Sloan’s offenses, he shouts, “You lie!” (78), causing Eragon to unleash on him; Sloan’s stoic response reveals his “true name.” Eragon is able to catch onto three words in the ancient language and recite them; this gives Eragon power over Sloan. Eragon does not even know his own true name.

Eragon makes a mirror from water and a bowl-shaped rock and connects to Queen Islanzadí in Du Weldenvarden. The elves are preparing for war and have already gone to battle against Galbatorix after his followers entered their forest to source their timber from the oldest and largest trees. Eragon asks the queen for her advice regarding Sloan, and she thinks it is appropriate that if Sloan survives; he will earn his life back from Gilderien the Wise. Eragon tells Sloan he will never see Katrina again, which devastates him; they will march north to Ellesméra, an elven city in Du Weldenvarden. Sloan begs for the mercy of death, but Eragon will not give him that. He reveals that Sloan will have the opportunity to change his fate by living purely in Ellesméra. After a sleep on the Grey Heath, Eragon wakes with the name “Letta” on his tongue, and Sloan having left. He’s tempted to visit Brom’s tomb, but he resists.

Chapters 4-6 Analysis

Eragon faces an internal struggle in these chapters regarding what to do with Sloan now that he has him in his care. He found the old man incapacitated and blinded and was unable to kill him despite his terrible misdeeds. He comes to believe he does not even have the authority to kill him; that kind of power should be left to kings and queens, not Riders. Although angry, Queen Islanzadí agrees he would have been overstepping his boundaries to assume such jurisdiction.

The death of the final Ra’zac in the Helgrind has a positive and negative effect on Eragon. On the one hand, it is a relief for him to have avenged his homeland and his dead comrades whose lives were taken by the Ra’zac; on the other, he feels a sense of loss—which he attributes to a sense of nostalgia. A third option Paolini invites the reader to entertain is a sense of xenophobia amongst the people of Alagaësia. They are not accepting of the Ra’zac, to the point that their extinction is cause for celebration. This will be repeated again with a race of creatures serving the Varden called Urgals. They will be singled out for their skin color, difference in temperament, and previous position against the humans, elves, and dwarves. Because the Urgals are useful to the Varden, they are slowly accepted into their ranks; whereas the Ra’zacs had aligned with Galbatorix and were never seen as anything but monsters to people of the Varden.

In the first three chapters, Eragon is revealed to be a vegetarian. The reason for this continues to reveal itself in the next several chapters. In order to do magic, he must sap energy from other living things (plants or animals). Sometimes this results in their death. This is something unique to Paolini’s rules of magic in Alagaësia. Magic is energy, and in order to use magic there is a constant transfer, which mirrors science in our world in that energy is neither created nor destroyed. Paolini expresses this transfer of power through restorative magic throughout the book, but it is something he places emphasis in at the start to set the reader’s expectations: magic is not without its limits, and spellcasters are not meant to be all-powerful. That is why the scope of Galbatorix’s power will come into question, as it is seen as quite unusual in its limitless nature.